Cassandra Jenkins: 2024

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

During the pandemic, in the winter of 2021, Cassandra Jenkins released her second album, the strikingly intimate An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. As the world struggled with grief and isolation during that catastrophic, time, Cassandra’s album, brimming with richly observant songs like the mesmerizing, spoken-word “Hard Drive” and the haunting “Ambiguous Norway,” was a lighthouse in a storm, critically acclaimed and treasured by everyone who discovered it.

The roots of that beautiful album came from a place of intense pain for Jenkins: just a few days before she was to tour with David Berman in August 2019, in support of his debut album as Purple Mountains, he died by suicide. Profoundly shaken by the tragic death of her friend, Jenkins departed for Norway to reevaluate her own relationship to music and whether it was meant to be a part of her life.

Three years on from An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, Cassandra’s arresting third album, My Light, My Destroyer, has arrived to more effusive praise — and a new label for Jenkins, Dead Oceans. Arriving at My Light, My Destroyer was not an easy segue — it is the aftermath of an aftermath. But it's a bright testament to Jenkins' perseverance, perfectionism, and visionary songwriting.

For this FUV Live session, Jenkins and her bandmates —  guitarist Adam Brisban, bassist Ian Davis, and drummer Zoë Brecher — played three songs from My Light, My Destroyer in Studio A: "Clams Casino," "Aurora, IL," and "Petco."

My conversation with Jenkins touched on many things, starting with the legacy of her late grandmother, Doris, and her steadfast love of her old Buick (which Cassandra has inherited) — which partly inspired "Clams Casino." Jenkins talked about stargazing and the celestial undertow of her new songs, William Shatner in space, and the serendipitous influence of a Palehound gig. Five years after David Berman's passing, Jenkins also spoke of his continued impact on her life.

It was a privilege to have Cassandra, a truly gifted Brooklyn songwriter (and part-time philosopher), in session at FUV at last.

[Recorded: 8/20/24. Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Erin Merriman. Produced by Meghan Offtermatt. Videographers: Bella Lipayon, Alena Godas, Louisa Schramm, and Adithi Vimalanathan.]